Forum:The Old Ways -- your perspective?
What's your take on The Old Ways? Do you follow them? I guess some of them seem good to me, some of them I'm not so sure about. : 1. If you wish to challenge a troop, take your weapon and defend upwards. (A duel is usually melee only) I've seen some people who defend upwards to signal "let's team up." At any rate, I suppose as long as there's a convention, that's fine. : 2. Respect other peoples duels - Do not interrupt other people dueling. If there are maybe three people on the server, this is reasonable. (Otherwise almost every fight ends with two people locked in battle until a third one stabs someone in the back.) My general perspective is that if you like duels, you should play on a duel server, where more complex scenarios like three-player battles are mechanically impossible. In large games that are not using duel rules (e.g., with 20 players in a team deathmatch game or the like), how are you supposed to know whether two people fighting are fighting in a formal duel, or just fighting normally? Or are you supposed to assume all one-on-one combats are duels? If you want that, use a duel server in my view. : 3. If a cavalry-troop's horse is killed, do not shoot the troop when still on the ground, wait until the troop is on their legs or (rather) challenge the soldier to a duel, as they lost a part of their equipment (the horse). I reject this one. What's even the point of playing mêlée infantry if the only consequence of losing your horse as a a mêlée cavalry trooper is that you fight on foot like infantry always does? If cavalry were generally underpowered compared to infantry in the first place in MP, then it might be reasonable to have this rule as a sort of buff to cavalry, but I'd say that's generally not the case. I think it is fair that cavalry combat have some disadvantages as well as advantages -- and the window of vulnerability cavalry have lying on the floor after their horses are killed is a fair disadvantage. : 4. Never camp. What's camping? Does this mean staying at spawn points and killing players as soon as they spawn before they're prepared? I tend to agree that you shouldn't do that. (Although if the map is too small for the number of players, like Arena with a large number of players, then it's inevitable that players will spawn in the same spawn points in rapid succession, leading to kill-or-be-killed combat immediately after spawning. The blame for this, IMHO, lays with poor matchup of map to number of players, not players being jerks by spawnkilling.) Or does camping mean finding good pieces of terrain and using them for ranged combat? Frankly, I think this is acceptable. Using terrain like trees, buildings, etc, is the only way that crossbowmen have a chance against archers. (If shields on the back protected you in MP much, then, for example, a Rhodok crossbowman with a heavy board shield could turn around and effecively use their shield as a pavise for reloading -- but in MP, back shields seem to provide negligible protection if they provide any.) : 5. Do not be a sour loser, but do not be dishonest - Don't say 'Good Game!' just because you lost or just because you won. Okay. : 6. Join the enemy team if they are losing or have less players. I like this one. : 7. If you are in the possession of a loaded firearm, fire the shot up in the sky before a melee-duel. I suppose that's fine if both people agree that that's the convention. On the other hand, dueling with loaded guns, with the addition factor that someone might be able to get off a shot (and also have a window of vulnerability while trying to aim it and not using a mêlée weapon) also seems fine to me -- although perhaps you could say that that's a different type of duel, rather than a melee-duel. : 8. Do not side with the best team when you join a game, join the team that is losing (or the team with least players). This is #6 again, but it's still fine. : 9. Don't pick an overpowered class before you duel. Which class? I think it's pretty vague. : 10. Be kind to teammates, and vice versa, don't betray your team in the midst of battle. Make sure both players know if the duel will be melee or ranged. If it's just, say, a team deathmatch, I think it's fine to switch teams in the midst of a match (particularly if people are leaving one team, so that it's, say, seven people on one team and four on another). However, if this refers to actual TKing -- say, being a Sarranid in TDM and killing a fellow Sarranid rather than truly switching teams and respawning as a Vaegir, for example -- then I agree. I hate people who do that. : 11. Make sure both players know if the duel will be melee or ranged. Fair enough. Maklodes (talk) 18:44, July 6, 2015 (UTC) :Are The Old Ways a real thing? I don't play multiplayer, so I was never sure if these were something players actually knew about, or just something one person made up. [[user:tephra|◄► Tephra ◄►]] 17:59, July 6, 2015 (UTC) :: It might just be made up. People complaining about other people being "dishonorable" or "pussy" or whatever on MP is pretty common (for everything from using shields to using missile weapons to making flanking attacks to... I don't know. Everything.). I've never heard of a coherent "Old Ways," though, at least on the servers I've been on. Googling "old ways" "mount and blade" and such also doesn't turn up anything like the code in the wiki. Maklodes (talk) 18:44, July 6, 2015 (UTC)